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It was an earlier generation of young Americans who provided the numbers and political cover to change our civil rights laws. And another generation of America's youth changed our policy on the Vietnam War. Now it's up to this generation to stop the federal government's destructive spending habits.

Should we merely await the next manufactured crisis, frustrated that the only thing that stands between us and national success is our government, making us feel more and more helpless or hoping it will all somehow go away?

The House-Senate budget negotiations scheduled to begin on Wednesday are an opportunity for our leaders to finally have a meaningful discussion about healing our damaged economy. That's the discussion Washington should have been having all along, but which it hasn't had yet.

The economics of the moment is that fiscal responsibility really means less, not more deficit reduction right now. That's easy for me to say, I'm sure. But it's the truth. Just look at the jobs report.

The cuts which have already been forced on us have cost the economy nearly 1,000,000 jobs, according to the most conservative estimate, while robbing our economy of tens of billions in growth. Do you really think we want more of the same?

Conservative Republicans have lost their fight over the shutdown and debt ceiling, and they probably won't get major spending cuts in upcoming negotiations over the budget.
But they're winning the big one: How the nation understands our biggest domestic problem.

Reflecting on the recent shutdown/debt ceiling debacle, the resolution of which is only a few months' respite until the same self-imposed deadlines reappear, you've got to wonder: what's wrong with America?

There is a growing sense of unease in the country that we are on an unsustainable path that demands radical action. I believe that many of the most outspoken advocates of reform do not really understand that it will affect their Social Security and Medicare benefits, but their concern is nonetheless credible.

The budget agreement that Senate leaders announced today marks an important victory for the principle that shutting down the government and threatening national default aren't acceptable ways for either party to pursue policy concessions and should always be rejected.

President Obama has, unfortunately, embraced the faulty premise that deficit reduction should be a top priority. He, along with a chorus of deficit hawks, longs for a "grand bargain" that would get the debt and the deficit "under control."